Penguin Books: Introduction To Modern Business :: essays research papers fc

Penguin Books Introduction to Modern Business     The aim of this essay is to discover on how, over the last six yearsPenguin Books Limited has grown and managed external and internal flip-flops.     Sixty one years ago, Allen Lane, the managing director of the BodleyHead, a British publishing company, revolutionised reading with the introductionof the first ten Penguin paperbacks. Today, over 600 million paperbacks are soldyearly. At a time when there was still lesser of entertainment, paperback booksbrought reading to the masses. Nowadays, paperback books bring reading to theworld.     During the last six years (1990-1996) Penguin Books Limited was facedwith many "environmentalist pressures," with a continuous change inside thecompany, and competitors trying to imitate its successful innovations on bothsides of the Atlantic.     The major achievement in 1990 was the introduction of a new co mputersystem into some(prenominal) parts of the play along. The Credit Control department was thefirst area and Stock Management, Invoicing Systems, Warehousing, Distributionand Sales Services followed. Now the whole of the Companys systems areincorporated and networked.     During this item a new lists including the Twentieth Century ClassicsSeries complementing the Penguin Classics, Arkana, the New Age list and Fantail,the mass-market childrens list were introduced.     Internal change that took place during that year was the closing wad ofthe Penguin Bookshops (that expanded to include 12 shops during the last decade),leaving just one, the specialist Beatrix Potter "House of the Tailer ofGloucester", within the Group. This change took place due to the fact that theCompany was conscious that it had to concentrate on the publishing rather thanon the retail.     This decision brought a successful completion of a management buy-out ofthe shops. This action also counterbalance the loss that the Company faced inaugust 1991, when Pearson (an international enterprise quoted on the LondonStock Exchange with major media interests including many well-known name apartfrom Penguin, such as Longman, Pitman, Addison Wesley, the Financial Times,Westminster Press, Mindscape, Thames TV and Madame Tussauds) announced pre-taxprofits of Pounds 40.7m for the first half of 1991- a drop of 58 per cent on the selfsame(prenominal) period of 1990. In this period books fell from a trading profit of Pounds2.1m to a loss of Pounds 13.4m with Penguin losing Pounds 8m.     In the following two years no major changes have been recorded. Although,1993 was generally a successful year for all Penguin group companies. Penguin UKhad produced a strong programme including some major best sellers and agreed toa joint venture with the BBC for mass market paperbacks and film deals with two